its cold up here. and dark

Friday Nov 12th at the fabulous and secretive Raum 20 in deepest Neukölln in some industrial area, up a few flights and into the where the hell are we.

During my 6 months in India I had no computer.  I brought one, but thank some God or another, it broke within the first 9 days.  Everything happens for a reason.

My mind got opened up to quite a lot of things that I miss while I'm scurrying around processing stuff up here in the manscape.  Cleared space and no obligations to do anything, and at that time no real clear future.

We, the digitized, are quite altered?our attentions are fed this steady supply of info-sugar and our gaze is noticeably different than that of non-screen people.  We have become used to focusing on this stupid glowing rectangle with its fake drop shadows teasing us with the 3D perceptual layers we've evolved to process.  I really notice it when I talk with people who have NEVER used a screen.

We all do love this intense age of information, but its our generation that got our minds blown by this explosion and its us that has to figure out how we are going to balance that intensity going forward. That's our challenge.

Video below:  Richard Watson discussing screen culture and specifically over-connectivity.  Well worth taking some time off before clicking onto the next whatever. 

"Convenience is the disease that you have to fight in any creative field." Jack White (White Stripes)

To which I would add: rational decisions often make bad art or bleach the earth where your art needs to take root.

When do you get your ideas ?  Survey says: not while sitting at the computer searching and connecting.  It happens in the spaces away from that: walking, waking, driving, showering, reading a magazine but interestingly enough nobody mentioned while using technology.

And now I'd like to apologize for writing such a rational and to the point post. But I have things to do, must fly ...

"happy" halloween.

I'm off to Waxtreatment to see Shackleton and see if he can convince me to move to Schillerkiez or not. I'm not feeling it down there, but he loves it.

Playing at O Tannenbaum last Friday was a good change up for me. Its the first time I've played in a bar as opposed to a club for about 5 years.  I played a six hour set from the Congo, Mali, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Jamaica, No New York, London, India, Indonesia, Berlin, Columbia, Peru, DF, I don't know where, the 50s,60s,70s,80s,90s,00s but not much from the last year.  The last year is on quarantine for me.  Partly because I really want to make music myself so I don't to hear you other motherfuckers having fun.

Tannenbaum has lots of music heads there that come up to talk about records, lots of dancing, faces lost in genuine joy on the dancefloor (DJs live just to see that!), deadly strong belgian ales, chicks.  Crappy speakers.  Deer.  Ableton is annoying as fuck to DJ with, I'm over it. This APC-40 newfangled thing is pissing me off, every time I click a button I have to run it through my mind to make sure its the button I want to press.  Staring at the screen. Trying to find a track I know I want. Where's the search function ? Trying to find any tracks that I didn't already play.  In the 6th hour I just couldn't find the music.  Its just not made for DJing.

I'm thinking its time to move to Serato, especially now that we have The Bridge.  Now when these virtual DJ set ups first came out I scoffed at them.  Using a digital setup to emulate the past glories of the Age of Deejaying ?  GTFO.  That's mere simulation. I am a futurist, I am a mad programmer scientist and I will code up some fucking amazing futuristic tool that will let me splay beats across dimensions you haven't even heard of yet.  

Yes, futurism is arrogant by design. It implies bettering, furthering, competition.  Retro is actually a way to avoid this competitive ego drive (the desire to be ON IT, new, up to the time).  Even more so if the musician is dead: its all tribute then and his/her ego won't swell.

I was talking with a good old techno friend, Function, and as usual I was probably mouthing off about some new music and how great it was and then he butted in: "Why does it always have to be some new thing ?  Why does it always have to change ?"  Good question.  Much joy can be had by removing the need to progress and concentrating on learning the genre like an instrument.  I talked with Jamie Vex'd a little bit after that and he could NOT comprehend why anybody would want to make music within a fixed classic form.  For him it is all about the next sound and he could barely tolerate listening to me defend the classical approach.  Man, he was rubbed the wrong way just by the thought of it.  Function was pretty fussed too.

Well personally I crave newness and changes and I'll probably be on my deathbed wondering what's going to happen next after I'm gone.  Its the spice, I crave it.  Its common among smarty pants to fetishize change and relate it to Thinking and Big Thoughts.  But I like the historical music-from-all-decades approach too, and I'm old enough to be good at it.  I actually remember most of the decades that are currently retro-hip.  Hey, I was hip in the 80s !   Mike Wolf and I ran the Polar Bear Club in New York for 4 years and that was all about all-possible-musics, anything that fits on a turntable, we'll play it. Kein musik ist illegal.

Anyway I do love the concept of Deejaying (though not as much as Vajayjaying).  No 1700s science fiction writer would think of this:   vibrations carved in a V-shape on two black disks, synchronize them by adjusting the resistors going into the motor (despite having landed a man on the moon 50 years previously) and sit there maintaining this stupid sync while people dance through the transition.

The point, of course, is to create the THIRD RECORD. You know that, of course. Record one plays, record two sneaks in and therein arises the THIRD RECORD that manifests as a unique piece of music only to be experienced that night on that dance floor.  Wiggle it about, play with it, when nobody is looking, record one slinks off stage right.

Working with Ableton for a time let me concentrate on better blends, blends that said something and created something and didn't just try to blend in.  It also let me think about the set, the arcs of time, the experience of the night as it changes and we get lost, talk to people drunkenly, dance and sometimes get shivers down our spine as the music proclaims the evening.

The lengthy Ableton preparation was for me a kind of analysis, a careful considering. But now I've passed through that and its just annoying.  It took me about 10 hours to prepare a 6 hour set, and after 5 hours I couldn't find the tracks I was looking for.

People hate seeing somebody playing from a laptop. Its a simple fact.

Before I thought it was a joke to use a simulated interface, now I embrace this Simulation of the Past.  I'm a Simulated Girl living in a Simulated World.  I want to reference this vinyl past.

The only problem is that Serato requires turntables or USB disc controllers.  I would've played in this club in Zambia if I had CDs, but it was tricky to plugin Ableton.  Serato couldn't have happened at all.  What do ?

Live : I like the ability to beat sync things that are impossible to beat sync on turntables.  I find it funny that in this day and age we still hear DJs play records and they have to maintain the sync and fuck it up.  The old "sneakers in the dryer" bump bump bump thing.

Anyway I'm thinking I should use Serato and the (Ableton) Bridge which gives me the best of both worlds.  My friend Jeff Milligan spearheaded or consulted for the project and I need to look seriously into it.

So why are Rane SL-3 twice as expensive in Europe as in the US ?  That's a seriously overpriced piece of electronics, no ?